Robert Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land

Jill sneaked a glance at it before putting it into her purse: “But the sinner’s belly is filled with filth—N.R. XXII 17”

“You’ll note,” Boone went on, “that the pay-off is in tokens, not in coin—and the bursar’s cage is clear back past the bar… and there is plenty of opportunity there to make love offerings for charity and other good works. So the sinner probably feeds them back in… with a blessing each time and another text to take home. The cumulative effect is tremendous, really tremendous! Why, some of our most diligent and pious sheep got their start right here in this room.”

“I don’t doubt it,” agreed Jubal.

“Especially if they hit a jackpot. You understand, every combination is a complete sentence, a blessing. All but the jackpot. That’s the three Holy Eyes. I tell you, when they see those eyes all lined up and starin’ at ’em and all that manna from Heaven coming down, it really makes ’em think. Sometimes they faint. Here, Mr. Smith—” Boone offered Mike one of the slugs the machine had just paid. “Give it a whirl.”

Mike hesitated. Jubal quickly took the proffered token himself—damn it, he didn’t want the boy getting hooked by a one-armed bandit! “I’ll try it, Senator.” He fed the machine.

Mike really hadn’t intended to do anything. He had extended his time sense a little and was gently feeling around inside the machine trying to discover what it did and why they were stopping to look at it. But he had been too timid to play it himself.

But when Jubal did so, Mike watched the cylinders spin around, noted the single eye pictured on each, and wondered what this “jackpot” was when all three were lined up. The word had only three meanings, so far as he knew, and none of them seemed to apply. Without really thinking about it, certainly without intending to cause any excitement, he slowed and stopped each wheel so that the eyes looked out through the window.

A bell tolled, a choir sang hosannas, the machine lighted up and started spewing slugs into the receptacle and on into a catch basin below it, in a flood. Boone looked delighted. “Well, bless you! Doc, this is your day! Here, I’ll help you—and put one back in to take the jackpot off.” He did not wait for Jubal but picked up one of the flood and fed it back in.

Mike was wondering why all this was happening, so he lined up the three eyes again. The same events repeated, save that the flood was a mere trickle. Boone stared at the machine. “Well, I’ll be—blessed! It’s not supposed to hit twice in a row. But never mind; it did—and I’ll see that you’re paid on both of them.” Quickly he put a slug back in.

Mike still wanted to see why this was a “jackpot.” The eyes lined up again.

Boone stared at them. Jill suddenly squeezed Mike’s hand and whispered, “Mike… stop it!”

“But, Jill, I was seeing—”

“Don’t talk about it. Just stop. Oh, you just wait till I get you home!”

Boone said slowly, “I’d hesitate to call this a miracle. Machine probably needs a repairman.” He shouted, “Cherub here!” and added, “We’d better take the last one off, anyhow,” and fed in another slug.

Without Mike’s intercession, the wheels slowed down on their own and announced: “FOSTER-LOVES-YOU,” and the mechanism tried, but failed, to deliver ten more slugs. A Cherub, older and with sleek black hair, came up and said, “Happy day. You need help?”

“Three jackpots,” Boone told him.

“‘Three’?”

“Didn’t you hear the music? Are you deaf? We’ll be at the bar; fetch the money there. And have somebody check this machine.”

“Yes, Bishop.”

They left the Cherub scratching his head while Boone hurried them on through the Happiness Room to the bar at the far end. “Got to get you out of here,” Boone said jovially, “before you bankrupt the Church. Doc, are you always that lucky?”

“Always,” Harshaw said solemnly. He had not looked at Mike and did not intend to—he told himself that he did not know that the boy had anything to do with it… but he wished mightily that this ordeal were over and all of them home again.

Boone took them to a stretch of the bar counter marked “Reserved” and said, “This’ll do—or would the little lady like to sit down?”

“This is fine.” (—and if you call me “little lady” just once more I’ll turn Mike loose on you!)

A bartender hurried up. “Happy day. Your usual, Bishop?”

“Double. What’ll it be, Doc? And Mr. Smith? Don’t be bashful; you’re the Supreme Bishop’s guests.”

“Brandy, thank you. Water on the side.”

“Brandy, thank you,” Mike repeated… thought about it, and added, “No water for me, please.” While it was true that the water of life was not the essence in the water ceremony, nevertheless he did not wish to drink water here.

“That’s the spirits,” Boone said heartily. “That’s the proper spirit with spirits! No water. Get it? It’s a joke.” He dug Jubal in the ribs. “Now what’ll it be for the little lady? Cola? Milk for your rosy cheeks? Or do you want a real Happy Day drink with the big folks?”

“Senator,” Jill said carefully, “Would your hospitality extend to a martini?”

“Would it! Best martinis in the whole world right here—we don’t use any vermouth at all. We bless ’em instead. Double martini for the little lady. Bless you, son, and make it fast.” He turned to the others. “We’ve just about time for a quick one, then pay our respects to Archangel Foster and on into the Sanctuary in time to hear the Supreme Bishop.”

The drinks arrived and the jackpots’ payoff. They drank with Boone’s blessing, then he wrangled in a friendly fashion with Jubal over the three hundred dollars just delivered, insisting that all three prizes belonged to Jubal even though Boone had inserted the slugs on the second and third. Jubal settled it by scooping up all the money and depositing it in a love-offering bowl near them on the bar.

Boone nodded approvingly. “That’s a mark of grace, Doc. We’ll save you yet. Another round, folks?”

Jill hoped that someone would say yes. The gin was watered, she decided, and the flavor was poor; nevertheless it was starting a small flame of tolerance in her middle. But nobody spoke up, so she trailed along as Boone led them away, up a flight of stairs, past a sign reading: POSITIVELY NO SEEKERS NOR SINNERS ALLOWED ON THIS LEVEL—THIS MEANS YOU!

Beyond the sign was a heavy grilled gate. Boone said to it: “Bishop Boone and three pilgrims, guests of the Supreme Bishop.”

The gate swung open. He led them around a curved passage and into a room.

It was a moderately large room, luxuriously appointed in a style that reminded Jill of undertakers’ parlors, but it was filled with cheerful music. The basic theme seemed to be “Jingle Bells” but a Congo beat had been added and the arrangement so embroidered that its ancestry was not certain. Jill found that she liked it and that it made her want to dance.

The far wall of the room was clear glass and appeared to be not even that. Boone said briskly, “Here we are, folks—in the Presence.” He knelt quickly, facing the empty wall. “You don’t have to kneel, you’re pilgrims—but do so if it makes you feel better. Most pilgrims do. And there he is just as he was when he was called up to Heaven.”

Boone gestured with his cigar. “Don’t he look natural? Preserved by a miracle, his flesh incorruptible. That’s the very chair he used to sit in when he wrote his messages… and that’s just the pose he was in when he went to Heaven. He never moved and he’s never been moved—we just built the Tabernacle right around him… removing the old church, naturally, and preserving its sacred stones.” Opposite them about twenty feet away, facing them, seated in a big arm chair remarkably like a throne, was an old man. He looked as if he were alive—and he reminded Jill strongly of an old goat that had been on the farm where she had spent her childhood summers. Yes, even to the out-thrust lower lip, the cut of the whiskers, and the fierce, brooding eyes. Jill felt her skin prickle; the Archangel Foster made her uneasy. Mike said to her in Martian, “My brother, this is an Old One?”